


Ritual

by Kylie Lee (kylielee1000)



Category: Equilibrium (2002)
Genre: M/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-17
Updated: 2008-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:44:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylielee1000/pseuds/Kylie%20Lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Preston masturbates in the shower.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ritual

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during the action of the film. Why yes, May _is_ National Masturbation Month. Originally posted May 5, 2007. Beta: Sarah.

John Preston, head lowered against the beat of spray from the shower head, felt himself stir in anticipation even before he took himself into his hand. He had done this every morning since his wife had died. His discipline said that it permitted focus. The small, sharp ejaculation could be forgotten, something he had to do to maintain his focus and equilibrium. Now he found himself eager for it, the duty transformed into something he didn't—couldn't—understand. As he touched himself, he felt his heart speed up in anticipation. He hadn't even started, and his body had already begun to react.

His prozium administrator sat on the edge of the sink. He couldn't see it, but he knew it was there. Its black handle flipped open to reveal the golden ampoules, each labeled with a tracking number and the time of day it was to be administered. That was the rest of his morning ritual: shower, along with release; towel off; get dressed; slick back hair; brush teeth; inject prozium. He thought of the ampoules now as he began to move his soap-slick hand. So many things hurt him now when he brushed against them, and this moment had become one of them. He felt the same when he took his gloves off and reached out, or when he passed his children's bedroom at night. Nothing stood between him and the world anymore. Protection had been stripped away. When he thought he couldn't bear it, he imagined inserting the ampoule and holding the administrator to his neck. He could do it now. Instead of the knot of anticipation, he'd feel the blank calmness that had made up his whole existence.

If he did that, then he wouldn't feel _this._ The eruption that came at the end would be just as it had been before: a distant, disinterested flare that could barely be called pleasure. The clerics spoke clinically about purely physiological release, just as Father spoke about the duty of citizens to procreate. He hadn't thought much one way or the other about the pleasure, but it had transmuted into something different now that he was free of prozium's dampening effects. Now, when he touched himself, the sensuous slide made him throb, and he wanted nothing more than to stretch it out, to keep himself on the edge for as long as possible until his body took over—his body, which the gun kata had trained—and the blood roared in his ears.

He tightened his grip and set a rhythm. He bent his head forward, watching himself. He had never watched, before—not like this, purposefully—but now he found that it excited him. He hadn't injected himself for four days, and every day, it got harder to go fast, to make it end so he could go to work. He would have preferred that it stay a task, something to be completed, like brushing his teeth. But instead, he found himself drawing it out. He'd discovered that he preferred the thick, viscous slickness of shampoo to soap. He'd located a place right under the cap that made him jerk when he touched it. If he ran his finger just under that edge, first gently, then harder, it stretched him and made him gasp, but that delicate sensation alone wasn't enough to bring him to release. He needed his whole hand for that. He needed to plunge himself in and out of his slick, tight fist, faster and faster.

He put out an arm to brace himself in the shower stall. The spray of tepid water drove into his back, shielding his hand from the water, preserving the slickness. He couldn't, or wouldn't, think of Viviana, of the way, in the last few months of her life, she would turn to him in the dark. She had become desperate, and now he knew why: sensation previously safely leashed by prozium had been freed. At the time, sleepy, he had held her waist, stroked her legs and buttocks, obediently kissed her if she bent down to meet his lips with hers. He let her touch his body with avid hands, work herself against him until she collapsed, panting, almost crying, and then he'd pushed into her, rhythmically driving himself to his own release, a small, dim flame, quickly extinguished. He didn't want to think about how he'd react if she could turn to him now. It had gotten too hard to think about Viviana lately. He understood too well how she had felt, what she had wanted. He didn't want to think about love at all, because Viviana had loved him and he'd been incapable of loving her back. The sharp desperation that went with his feelings about her cut too deeply.

His foot slipped, and he stepped forward to compensate, the sudden, inelegant movement jarring him, breaking his concentration as he leaned his hip against the shower wall to steady himself. He didn't like to think of Viviana when he did this. He tried not to think of very much at all, preferring instead to lose himself in the rush of sensation. The cold of the shower tiles seeped into his shoulder as he began again, squeezing hard to make it fast, but he didn't feel the rapid buildup of heat he wanted. He shouldn't have thought of Viviana. Shutting his eyes didn't help, and when he pushed himself away from the side of the shower, he slipped again. The shock he felt as he caught himself for the second time reminded him of the thud of his practice stick they used as swords being struck during sparring. He scrubbed a foot around the shower's floor, clearing away soap scum, until his footing felt secure, but the jarring feeling reminded him of sparring with Brandt. They'd exchanged a few words, but they didn't mean much. They communicated through actions. Brandt wanted to move up and planned to walk over Preston to do it, but Preston matched him. Brandt wouldn't have an easy victory. It wasn't like it had been when Preston had been assigned to Partridge. Preston hadn't wanted to best Partridge; he'd wanted to learn from the best.

His hand tightened as he tried to clear his thoughts, but in his mind's eye, he saw Brandt's face inches away from his own, a quick flash of a grin that Preston hadn't been able to interpret. Was Brandt a sense offender too, or was it nothing but a stray emotion floating to the surface? It was likely the result of a charged match, an emotion to be submerged again just as quickly as the smile disappeared and Brandt struck. Brandt was good, but not as good as Preston, and certainly not as good as the man he could never replace, Errol Partridge. He remembered that sparring match. They'd stood locked together, eye to eye, Brandt confident they were equally matched, until Preston gently nudged Brandt with the stick he held between Brandt's legs. That held new meaning now, here in the shower, as though he were caressing his opponent rather than fighting him.

Preston made a small noise in the back of his throat as he thought of that stick. He could slide it along the inside of Brandt's leg, brush it against the ridge of Brandt's length, a faint, arousing friction. He'd learned that move from Partridge, who'd done it to him, but only now did it seem intimate instead of threatening. Preston had been calling Brandt on his overconfidence, just as Partridge had done to him two years ago, but it might have been a caress, like the gesture Brandt made when he drove: he gently rubbed a thumb against the steering wheel. He stared straight ahead even as his hand moved, as if unconscious of it.

He'd hook a foot behind Brandt's and tumble him to the ground. He'd pin Brandt down with knee on stomach, pressing down, showing Brandt who was in charge, shoving against his chest, his shoulder to subdue him. He would unfasten his pants and take himself in his hand. He'd be hard already, throbbing from the dance they'd started with the sparring match. He'd start stroking, as he was stroking now. Until Brandt understood, though he would continue to struggle, of course. Even when Preston would undo clothing, first Brandt's, then his own—not everything, just unbuttoning and pulling clothing away until bare skin appeared. He'd have to shove Brandt back against the floor hard, until he realized that struggling was futile and eased up. He would rub himself against Brandt's belly, tracing a thin line of wet along dark skin even as he used his weight to keep him immobile.

He shut his eyes and turned his face to the tepid water. The thought of Brandt moving under him, skin sliding against skin, had him balanced on the knife's edge. Doing this while sensate was like the gun kata. He could suspend everything, controlling himself even as his body slid closer to breaking. He could balance here, heart squeezing in time to the throbbing center of his pleasure. He had never known it could be like this. The perfunctory release in the shower, his morning ritual—it would never again be enough, not when he had Brandt powerless underneath him. He'd lie back, quiet, giving in at the end, maybe because he wanted to gain control by watching Preston lose it. Brandt would reach up an arm, but not to shove Preston back. Instead, he'd move his thumb against Preston's arm in that circling caress, giving in, saying yes.

When he came, in his mind's eye, he emptied himself on Brandt's unresisting body. The pleasure was so exquisite that his knees buckled, and he had to finish while leaning against the wall, but he barely noticed in the blaze of heat. His thoughts stuttered from one image to the next: Brandt's dark eyes on his, watching Preston finally lose control, Brandt finally knowing he'd won by giving in; Brandt's hand tightening around his forearm and wrenching, the pain somehow feeding his pleasure; Preston sliding the practice stick in and out between Brandt's legs; Preston throwing Brandt to the ground and holding him down while Brandt struggled. All of it whited together as he struggled to breathe through mouthfuls of water while his sensate body exploded. It had never been like this for him, his soul pouring out of his mouth like water. During this long, long moment, his body was finally alive.

He lowered his head when he was done and panted. All evidence of his pleasure, of sense offense, would be washed away in this room: semen flushed down the drain, hair slicked back. He'd put on black, and he'd look just like himself again. Now it felt like putting on a mask.

He squeezed some liquid soap into his hand and washed himself off. He soaked his hair one last time, finally able to catch his breath when he lifted his chin into the air. The water, now distinctly cold, coursed down his back, until, chilled, he turned off the tap and reached for a towel. His thoughts kept returning to Brandt beneath him, of himself coming on Brandt's chest, white spatters of heat and pleasure, while Brandt stared up at him, hand caressing Preston's arm, giving in. He hadn't thought of anybody before when he'd done this, much less someone he'd been in combat with. If Brandt offered him what he'd just fantasized about, he would take it. He knew that, just as he knew that the next time they sparred, he wouldn't think of this moment, or of rubbing himself against Brandt's dark skin. The discipline of the gun kata would keep him focused. He could truly separate himself in ways that others couldn't—like Viviana, with her need and desperation.

Preston dropped the towel onto the floor and stepped on it, enjoying the feel of the fabric beneath his feet, just as he enjoyed the heavy feeling of body contentment that his release brought him. That was new, the suffusion of relaxation. He removed his morning prozium interval from the dispenser, ampoule glowing golden in the heavy, humid air. He usually injected himself after he brushed his teeth. He'd hide it behind the mirror, along with his other unused intervals. It was as if he were counting the days he'd been sensate, the days since he'd realized that nothing stood between his skin and the world.

He reached out, ready to grab the mirror and pull it out, but stopped. The foggy rectangle reflected only a blur of dark hair and white face. He reached out, thinking of Brandt reaching up to touch him, to make a connection with him, and wiped a circle clear.

There, he thought, his body remembering the surge of pleasure. Now I can see.


End file.
